Short Story

The Geese Ate the Chicken

I have chickens, yes. It is nice to have fresh eggs every morning. Not so nice to have their home so close to mine, but that is its own story by itself. We bought 6 chicks about 3 years ago. We now have 5.

One died, obviously.

And no we didn’t kill it. It killed itself. But we contemplated having it for dinner. More on that further down.

Yes our poor little chicken scared itself to death. I was sad, well maybe not so sad because the little bugger turned herself into a rooster.

Yup! You read that right, that little brown hen started cock-a-doodle-doing at 4 am EVERY morning. Who needs an alarm clock when you have a female rooster.

I didn’t even know that was possible. The lady at the bookstore gave me that strange squinted eye look when I asked her about books on chickens turning into roosters. You know the look, raised eyebrow, slanted eye looking you up and down. That was her looking at me as she told me there was not a book about that. Um…ok then.

I don’t think she understood the dire situation I was in. Hens don’t cock-a-doodle-do, or do they?

So Google became my best friend, guess what else did? Facebook ads on my feed. I even started receiving emails about how to raise chickens, how to eat chickens and so forth. Didn’t learn anything useful other then hens lay eggs, hens wait for roosters to reproduce…this set off a wild tangent of questions. After all I did have this cock-a-doodle-doing chicken in the coop with the hens.

My husband, well not really my husband, but after 19 years together he has to deal with the new title. Of course he knows that without the ‘piece of paper’ he won’t get nothing from me when I am gone.

Much like we didn’t get much from the chicken when she…I mean he…or whatever it was, died.

Anyways, my ‘husband’ told me I was crazy, and living in a small town, word gets around fast. I mean fast. My neighbor down the street called me to let me know he believed my chicken was a hermaphrodite. Like…what? Seriously?

Apparently that is a thing. A hen can be born a hen but really be a rooster. Well the store never told us that when we bought them.

So there I was, the whole town knew my hen turned into a rooster and I was trying to fix her, and then POOF! she was dead. At the bottom of the trenches of their funky smelling box they called home. It was really their jail as we couldn’t let them out often because they always ran into the road.

It was only inevitable that we would lose at least one, but I seriously thought it would be because of a car, not because one scared itself to death. Literally.

Well what were we supposed to do now?

My son suggested the grill.

My husband suggested the oven.

Both said it was no different than going hunting. Well I am not a hunter, I didn’t hunt this poor chicken down.

My daughter said, and I quote “There is no way I am eating one of Henrietta’s gang!”

Yes my daughter named them, the biggest one is Henrietta and the rest were her gang of pecking thugs. Even the dogs knew to stay away from them. I believe one still has the scar on his nose.

So there we were contemplating on whether to eat one of egg bearing roosters. Believe me when I say it was all one sided. I had the last say, as most mothers do or at least we believe we do. Our voices are louder, that’s for sure.

I buried Henrietta’s gang member in the backyard, down by the water. We live on a pond and typically have many geese, ducks, swans and turtles in our yard. It doesn’t help that we put out feed for them.

My daughter and I said our goodbyes while the boys pouted in the house because the girls won once again.

Wouldn’t you know it, a few months later one of the geese dug her up and had a feast in our backyard. It was kinda sad to watch two adult geese show their 5 babies how to eat a dead chicken. Not to mention it had been buried for 3 months in the height of summer. Ever heard of salmonella?

The boys response? “And that could of been our dinner!”

The other 5 chickens live gloriously in their putrid coop. There is no amount of cleaning to keep it from smelling. But they are happy. And they are situated as far away from the house as possible. Not looking forward to winter when I will have to trek through snow to get to them fresh eggs.

Henrietta and her gang nose pecking thugs live on.